Ireland's Last Witch Trials: The Islandmagee Witches Of 1711 With Dr Andrew Sneddon

0:17

Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of the past, one ghostly tale at a time.

I'm your host, Michelle, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this Erie journey through the pages of history.

0:34

Picture this, a realm where the supernatural intertwines with the annals of time, where the echoes of the past reverberate through haunted corridors and forgotten landscapes.

That's the realm we invite you to explore with us.

Each episode will unearth stories, long buried secrets, dark folklore, tales of the macabre, and discuss parapsychology topics from ancient legends to more recent enigmas.

1:03

We're delving deep into locations and accounts all around the globe, with guests joining me along the way.

But this podcast is also about building a community of curious minds like you.

Join the podcast on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share your own ghostly encounters, theories, and historical curiosities.

1:27

Feel free to share with friends and family.

The links are conveniently placed in the description for easy access.

So whether you're a history buff with a taste for the supernatural or a paranormal enthusiast with a thirst for knowledge, Haunted History Chronicles is your passport to the other side.

1:47

Get ready for a ride through the corridors of time where history and the supernatural converge.

Because every ghost has a story, and every story has a history.

And now let's introduce today's podcast or guest.

2:09

In March and September of 1711, in Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Ireland's last witch trials took place.

It was a time when superstition and fear gripped the heart of a quiet Presbyterian community, where spectral apparitions and dark forces were believed to roam just beneath the surface of everyday life.

2:32

The tragic tale begins with the mysterious death of Anne Holtridge, a widow whose very home seemed to be the stage for a sinister drama.

Her sudden passing, after months of what was described as a supernatural siege, marked the beginning of a spiral into chaos.

2:51

Her young niece, Mary Dunbar, would soon arrive, and with her arrival, the nightmare deepened.

Mary's body was wracked with convulsions, her voice carrying dark accusations against the women of the nearby town, claiming they tormented her with witchcraft.

3:13

As March winds howled through Carrickfergus, eight women were brought to trial, their lives hanging in the balance in a court that seemed less a place of justice and more a battleground between the natural and the preternatural.

These women, all of Presbyterian stock, stood accused of crimes that reached beyond the physical world, spectral assaults, demonic conjurings, and curses that seeped into the bones of the afflicted.

3:44

They pleaded not guilty, yet the Irish Witchcraft Act of 1586 would not spare them their sentences, Public humiliation and imprisonment.

The horrors intend with their conviction.

Despite their imprisonment, Mary Dunbar's torments did not cease.

4:04

Instead, they seemed to escalate and soon William Seller, a man whose wife and daughter were already damned as witches, would fall under suspicion.

The Island Maggie Trials are more than a dark chapter of Irish history.

They are a window into an era of fear and misunderstanding, where belief in magic, in the supernatural, shaped lives and fates.

4:29

To help unravel this complex and haunting story, I'm joined by Doctor Andrew Snedden, an expert on the Island Maggie witch trials and the History virus witchcraft.

His research has shed light on the intricacies of these trials, the cultural fears that fuelled them, and the tragic consequences for those accused.

4:52

Dr. Snedden has spent years delving into the shadowed recesses of this historical episode, sharing his findings through books, TV, and public engagements, bringing the forgotten voices of the past back into the light.

5:09

His work has helped reframe our understanding a violence, witch trials, revealing the humanity and horror beneath the folklore.

Together, we will explore the deep roots of these trials, the impact on the community, and the unsettling echoes that still linger today.

5:34

Hi, Andrew, thank you so much for joining me this evening.

Hi YAF, no problem, love to you be here.

Would you like to just start by introducing yourself for the listeners and sharing a little bit about yourself and your background, Andrew?

Hi, Well, you might have guessed I'm Scottish, but I I now live in Northern Ireland.

5:57

I'm a senior lecturer on international history, in fact, but my specialism for a while now, I've done different types of history, religious history, medical history, political history.

But all throughout my career, from my master's that at Saint Andrews and my PhD that I did at Lancaster University with Robert Poole, who writes about Lancaster witches and all the way through, I have came in in of magic and witchcraft studies.

6:23

And recently, in the last 15 years, I've moved away from looking at English witchcraft skepticism and English witchcraft thought towards Irish witchcraft and magic for the basic reason that nobody had really looked at it and in a great depth.

6:40

From a historical perspective.

And you've obviously written about magic in witchcraft in Ireland.

Do you want to just give an an overview of some of the books that you've you've written about thus far?

Yeah, I've written a lot of academic articles as well, and sometimes these are hard to get for people who are interested in it.

7:01

Increasingly you can get a hold of them.

But I've written a lot on and I've written about witchcraft and magic from the medieval period right through to the modern period, which may seem a bit strange to certain listeners, but we'll we'll go through that, I think during the talk.

7:19

So my first book was on Bishop Francis Hutchison and it's called Witchcraft and Wigs.

And he was an English witchcraft skeptic who wrote against witchcraft.

And he wrote a book called Historical Essay Concerning Witches and Witchcraft.

And then I wrote a book called Possessed by the Devil, The History of the Old McGee Witches in 2013.

7:40

And the second edition, because I found out much more, you know, research and afterwards is coming out this year, this November by History Press.

And the second, the large addition, you know, it's got a lot more in it, but between that I wrote a book called Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland and it does what it says at the time.

8:01

You know, it looks at over the long period with a focus on the early modern period and uncovered belief and trials over that period.

And again, you know, just to make up for the fact that mainstream history and mainstream history writing had left out the Irish component.

8:20

My students, I was teaching, you know, at Queen's University and Belfast and also university witchcraft and they were asking me what about Ireland and I couldn't tell them really.

There'd only been a couple of articles written on it.

So over the years I did that, you know, was possessed with the devil, witchcraft and magic and Ireland and more recently.

8:40

There's a bit.

Called There Representing Magic and Modern Ireland where I look at how the cultural and literary and journalistic, you know, approaches to witchcraft and Ireland were handled.

Basically my my latest books.

8:57

Sorry.

Oh.

Yeah, it's amazing how many you're right over the years I have, you know, coming out hopefully fairly soon as a book, as an edited collection about witchcraft and enlightenment, Europe.

9:14

And it's part of a six part or a six volume set about magic and the Western world.

Basically.

It's by Bloomsbury and I'll be out in paperback next year, and I'm writing a book on disability and magic as well.

9:30

But I think it's important to realise, you know, that there's some incredible books on this topic because like you said, there isn't a huge, a huge wealth of material when it comes to magic and witchcraft in Ireland.

And from my perspective, having having spoken to different authors, different historians and researchers on this topic, you know, pretty much everyone says the same thing.

9:54

And I and I completely agree with the point that witchcraft in some respects gets this broad sweep of this is what it looks like, this is what it is.

And there isn't always that in depth understanding of these very specific areas and regions and what happened and what makes them different and unique and at the same time how they may be connected with other parts of the world.

10:21

And, you know, we really do, I think need to have a much deeper understanding on a, on a place by place, case by case understanding because they're not all identical carbon copies of history.

10:36

And it's, I think it's an important part of history that needs further exploration.

Basically I.

I completely agree with you.

And, and I think that there's been a turn in the last 10 years to look at more case studies, academics looking at case studies because you got individual trials looked at in books, but they were usually by historians working outside of academia, but increasingly in the last 10 years.

11:00

And, and I, I noticed that when I was writing Possessed by the Devil, you know, and I felt, you know, when I was writing that because I wrote it as an accessible book, scholarly based on the premium material, but you know, outward looking.

So people would actually read that basically.

11:16

And I noticed there was that missing.

But I think there's some amazing books out there by Malcolm Gaskell and Marian Gibson and all that at the minute.

Yeah, I agree with you.

There's some incredible material that has been published and is in the works as well, which I think is also quite exciting.

11:35

And obviously, we're going to have the chance to focus in specifically on, you know, a case that you've written about and you've researched and really done an awful lot of work to help raise the profile of.

Do you want to just walk us through the key events that led up to the trial that we're going to be speaking about, You know, particularly the circumstances surrounding Anne's death, Mary Dunbar's alleged possession.

12:03

Just kind of give us that brief overview if you like, if of the trial and the case.

So in September 1710, Anne Haltridge is living with her son James Haltridge and his wife and their children.

And it's in the house that she used to share with the Presbyterian minister of Ella McGee.

12:25

And he's been dead a few years.

And she's living with the family.

And she's sitting one night and she's written a book of sermons, and she feels stones getting thrown at the back of our head.

Then that night she sees all sorts of horrifying things and hears them, Curtains open and shot by themselves, an old land owners thrown at her.

12:49

She goes looking for it, can't find Dennison.

This presence crawls over her body.

Then she's confronted by a small figure and he talks to her and the servant, you know, finds talks to him as well.

13:07

So he comes and goes over the next few weeks.

And when, you know Margaret Speer, the servant, he threatens to kill everybody in the house.

It begs a grave with a sword.

It tries to murder a Turkey in the back garden.

13:24

And things are building up and building up, and thorns are getting thrown all the time.

It's called lithobolia.

And so they're beginning.

They think that this is not natural, that the boy isn't natural.

You know, he's coming and going.

He's in dark clothes.

He's a demonic presence.

Also, there's cats coming and disappearing and all sorts of things.

13:43

So it's building up and building up.

And at one point the small boy tells Margaret Spears, the servant, the heirs, you know, an agent of the devil.

So this continues and it disappears and it comes back again the next year, earlier next year, but beginning of February.

14:02

So this is 1711.

And again, the same stuff is happening in the house.

The the bedclothes are getting made-up in the shape of corpse.

There's important things to come.

Things are being moved, curtains open, the short scratching and shouting, all that sort of stuff.

14:22

And then, oh, Mrs. Hard, she's feels stabbing pains in her back.

Within a, you know, a week she's died.

And the intervening periods, a young educated genital woman comes with James's sister.

So she's basically and a daughter and a cousin and her cousin, her first cousin is called Betty Dunbar and she's the educated 18 year old from nearby Castlereagh.

14:49

They're Presbyterians that are of Scots descent.

They're, as we said, they're educated, they're well versed in the Bible.

They're well ado, they're well dressed.

And they come to this House of mourning within the space of a day.

15:05

Mary Dunbar is told not to give the of this old apron that's tied mysteriously with knots.

You know, we can go into that as obviously magic.

Everybody tells them not to kneel it because it's knotted, knotted string.

Knotted clothes can sometimes be a magical charm.

15:22

But she doesn't listen to them and.

She.

Undoes it basically unties and Anna is old and how did she's born it.

Almost immediately she suffers it demonic possession symptoms.

She starts off going into fits.

15:38

She can't walk up the stairs.

She has stabbing pains in her body and she convulses as well.

So this this starts almost immediately and it gets worse and coinciding with these kind of convulsive fits, she says she's crying out names and people that are attacking her.

15:57

And this is spectral attackers and over the coming weeks, through basically through March and the end of February and through March, she sees these people, she's she hears their names, she can describe them, but nobody else can see them.

16:15

This is called well commented us as it's called spectral evidence.

And you're always, not always, but you see a lot and possession witchcraft cases.

So she gets worse or symptoms get worse.

They get worse over the coming weeks.

16:31

She vomits household objects, she can't eat.

She's rendered an ability speak.

She, she, she was blamed at one point she also said levitate, you know, so these, these are getting worse, the symptoms and the authorities are are brought in.

16:48

First of all, they bring in the main authority, the Presbyterian minister who bring, you know, and then an Anglican, a Church of Island minister comes and then the authorities are involved, you know, because they are not able to do anything.

So they bring the authorities and so that the authorities can, you know, find out who's responsible, jail them and hopefully stop the attacks.

17:09

It's kind of lynchpin of witchcraft belief that they'll stop if you fade as.

So using their names, their specific appearances, which we'll talk about later, and their close, the local justice of the peace is able to track these down with these constables, track these people down and bring them to Mary Dunbar, who is who is able to pick them out of a lineup basically.

17:35

And some of these lineups are like 30 people in them.

And even then they're skeptical.

So what they do is a blind test to turn her to the wall or they bring the wrong person in.

And every time she is able to identify the person that she has named, you know, has come into her and her spectral attacks.

17:55

She's never been to Aileen McGee before so she says she's never seen them and she's only saw them in our attacks.

So they're brought 1 by 1 and then they're jailed over the weeks to await trial at their size court, the main Criminal Court which is at Carrickfergus.

18:14

Down the road she goes to learn across the lock stays there which is is quite costing on McGee and from there travels fitting the whole time.

To the courthouse.

She meets 3 mysterious people on the road, two women and a man who say if she testifies though, you know, and their words straight or dumb.

18:37

So next day you know, she's up all night.

You know everybody you know waiting to, you know, go to the court.

She keeps them up to four O clock in the morning.

The child's at 6:00 in the morning and, you know, skeptical among us lo and.

18:52

Behold.

She can't speak, so she can't testify because they have taken her speech away from her so she can't testify.

But the great and the good are there.

It's a really long trial.

It's 8 hours, They're usually 20 minutes even for Capital Ones where your life is on the line.

19:08

So this is a huge trial, loads of witnesses.

The great and the good are there every day.

It's a big cause celeb and Carrick Fergus and they they plead not guilty, but they're found guilty under the 1586 Age Witchcraft Act.

They nearly get.

19:24

Prosecuted for Anne's murder, but they, they get off it and we can talk about that, but they're prosecuted for Anne's bewitchment.

They didn't kill her at this point.

So they get 4 times and the pillar day, you know, and pelted with things per year for a year and a year's imprisonment.

19:43

It's it's one that you really see just this incredible set of circumstances coming together with these strange occurrences that seems to just really, really snowball and like you said, just really then seem to bring everyone into the matter becoming a really sensational case.

20:09

Everyone's interested in it.

And you know, just coming back to, you know, Mary Dunbar's first possession as you kind of picked up upon and you started detailing there, you know, you talked about how she experienced.

You know, these convulsions and other supernatural phenomena with were those the first signs, the first beginnings then of this alleged, you know, demonic possession that she was experiencing?

20:36

Yeah, and it's demonic possession by witchcraft, right?

Demonic possession by the devil implies that you've done something wrong, because the devil is A to use.

Parlance to the team the Ape of God.

He does what he's told.

20:52

So you have been bad and these you know, Gotham or his demons have possessed you, but you got off the hook if it's by witchcraft and you know it starts off slowly, but you get the demonic obsession as well.

21:08

So you see the demonic obsession, which is the the outward Saints, you know, so the the the demon, it's not what I was describing there.

Sounds like Porter guest activity, you know, as it would be described in the 19th and 12th century, but then of the screaming as demonic activity, as demonic obsession, the demons outside doing this prior to a possession.

21:31

And obviously Anne Houltry didn't get possessed, but merely that.

And she's following a cultural script of possession in a sense here, you know, and we can talk about that later.

But, you know, it starts off with the convulsions and effects and it gets worse.

21:48

And, you know, and as it gets worse, there's more and more people.

There, see it.

You know, and, and it's almost reacting to an audience as well, you know, but the the spectral attacks as well are there, you know, when she's describing them, the the witches are cajoling her.

22:06

They're asking her.

They'll say we'll stop the attacks if you join our legions of the devil.

And they actually explain what the levitation is.

It's actually them less than they're up spectrally, but not to conceive them and they're trying to throw her out the window.

So I mean for demonic possessions, this is quite a, a wide spectrum and quite odd ones, you know, a wide spectrum of symptoms and they're quite odd, you know, for the time.

22:33

So what led Mary then to to accuse the eight women that she did, and what kind of evidence was used to convict them during the trial?

Paul is mainly spectral evidence.

She's saying I was able to, you know, describe these women by, you know, and we'll talk about this and unusual looks, but also the clothes which were shabby and old.

22:56

She's able to like describe them and she is tell and sometimes they name each other as well.

So that's the main type of evidence.

It's the the testimony of Mary Dunbar.

Nobody else can see it but others, you know, I mean when you have, we're really lucky.

23:15

You have the pre trial witness statements and depositions and we have a witness statement in form of a letter.

You can get them all on our website which we'll talk about later.

I've transcribed them all for you so you can read them yourself and they're all there and they tell.

23:31

You.

You know that they see Dunbar talking to people, they see her going into fits her body as a body of evidence, but they can't see the spectres, but they see there were signs of as well and and spectral evidence.

23:46

You know, as you probably know, if you've been doing a a lot of these as a bit dodgy and it has been seen as that it's been seen as a bit, you know, untrustworthy from the mid 17th century onwards and England.

And that's why you've got the the regular test and over right.

24:04

But even in Salem and Massachusetts in 1692, it was never used in its own.

I was always with.

Something else throughout the trial.

And commentators like Cotton Mather were really against it, you know, and they were against it for the same reasons that people comment on Angle McGee.

24:22

Trial were against it.

Basically, how do we how can we prosecute people for being in league with the devil when the devil could have put the images in their heads?

He could have put the images in their heads just to get innocent people convicted.

24:39

That's exactly what the devil would do.

And it's not inconsistent either with the, the Christian view of, you know, a God at that time either.

So the other one is, as we just mentioned this, the testimonies, both the depositions and you're in the trial itself.

24:57

And there's 24 of these at the trial.

I think it's a you know who give pretrial depositions, and these come from the great and the good of preserved Presbyterian society.

What the witches don't come from, their cures don't come from, but it's the testimonies of believable people.

25:16

And it's a.

Testament of Mary Dunbar, who is a believable witness and we actually have her trial pretrial deposition.

She doesn't talk during the trial itself.

But she talks to the justice of the peace.

Edward Clements before it.

25:32

So these testimonies are very important.

By the way, see Edward Clements.

He is the ancestor of Samuel Hawthorne Clements, Mark Twain.

I was going to say, that's Mark Twain.

That is quite a connection.

So the next one is physical objects and they're brought out in the trial and they say here's pins and needles and cotton and she vomited these up and these people say they saw it being vomited up.

26:00

So the main evidence is spectral evidence and you know, along with testimonies and what people say about this trial, you know, and when I've often heard the public, you know, and we'll talk about that.

But you know, doing talks and TV and games and all different types of audience.

26:17

And they think when we we talk about it or we do something creative with it, we're keen to make it up because it's so, you know, it sounds so mad because some of the testimonies are talking and these are sworn testimonies.

They're seeing a blanket, you know, just rotating in the middle of the kitchen floor.

26:37

They see a bolster pillow walk up the corridor.

So these are, you know, educated, trustworthy people at the time telling you this.

You know, one of them thinks they saw the witch turn into a spider.

And so these these testimonies seem outlandish, but they're just think about who they're coming from.

26:58

Yeah, very much people that were credible for the society then, you know, these were people whose voices were really important and, and, you know, they would have been heard.

That's the main thing.

They would have been voices that counted and mattered.

And so it adds a degree of credence and weight and plausibility to it.

27:17

And the fact that you have them in the number that you do as well, you know, when you have several people with the same kind of testimony, again, it's it's that confirmation bias, isn't it?

It it all starts to create the picture that resulted in exactly what we see play out, which is the trial and the prosecution and the conviction.

27:39

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, they are the the, the community is against them, you know, and during.

The trial you see that you know, and, and if you think about when they're actually in the trial, this is eight women and they're from pure backgrounds.

27:58

Are they uneducated to probably never been at Carrickfergus and then they're suddenly in the lame night.

They've been through all that traumatic experience.

They have been put in present for you know up to a month, some of them a couple of weeks, some of them a few days.

28:13

But they've been put in irons because the spectral spectral travel and then spectral attacking because you'll see in this the court trial in 1661 at your.

The witches.

Believed to escape our body and continue attacks.

28:29

So they're putting ions basically and chained to the wall so the by the time they get to the the trial, they'll be traumatized.

It's all men as really important people that they wouldn't from their social mail.

You even come in contact.

28:44

With and you've got all these people ranged against them.

So how were they treated then during during that trial?

Were there their voices and their defence considered?

And you know, how did the the community view their innocence or guilt?

29:01

Well, people are quite skeptical.

Witchcraft is right at the end of the witch trials.

So you need quite a lot and you know, you've got merely Dunbar carrying on, but you need, you know, the community against.

Them and they have to be and they are, you know, we'll go through the steps later, you know, of the actual trial.

29:19

But because it's quite hard to get somebody you know convicted.

Like in England, and they have to go through a lot of steps and every step they are convinced of their guilt, you know, And so the grand jury, then the petty jury, and they're made-up of people from that area.

29:37

People who probably come in and out that house and seen all that, who you know, not the the 12 man petty jury perhaps, but the other ones would maybe have more affinity with merely Dunbar.

They would have been in the small courtroom.

29:52

It was ruined by the mid 18th century.

As in a small, you know.

Split a coffee shop is now in Carrickfergus and they would have been herded and a communal dock.

They didn't have a defense lawyer.

There wasn't a lawyer for the prosecution.

30:08

This is an A size court is led by the size judges and merely Dunbar is kind of haggle a pickle and it's all over the shop because merely Dunbar is meant to be like game conducting our family conducting the the the trials that were, you know, which was usual in these cases.

30:26

So they, you know, when all everything was heard, the women who for the reasons were just said, probably couldn't defend themselves very well.

They were asked to basically like defend themselves.

And I think reading between the lines, I'm looking at the, you know, the evidence that they just basically shouted that they weren't guilty and railed against Mary Dunbar like you would.

30:51

And modern sense, you know, they, they didn't have any support at all.

You know, they're just, they're taken from the jail.

They're, they're processed to see if there's a case, then they're tried and then they're convicted.

They plead not guilty and they resist all the way through.

31:09

But you know, they're found guilty in the end.

So could you share more on the the details about the role of William Seller and the role that he played in the trial and the subsequent conviction after Mary Dunbar's death?

31:26

Yeah, when I wrote the first book Possessed by the Devil, I didn't know what happened to Mary Dunbar.

So I searched every newspaper for about 8 years I think maybe more, and from the time and I searched everywhere and I finally found that she died three weeks after the trial on 31st of March 1711.

31:49

But before that.

She was meant to after the trial get better.

Usually what happens is in possession witchcraft cases in England and something Scotland they reintegrate into the community or we never.

Hear from them again or one in the same.

32:07

So made on bar doesn't get better.

She says it's the two women and the man who are continuing the attacks on her.

The women are soon forgot about and she is taken away and taken back to her mum's house.

32:24

But she says she's strong's been spectrally attacked.

She's still having all the symptoms and she says it's a William Seller who is husband to a Janet Liston and father to Elizabeth Seller.

So what we have here is a witch.

32:41

Family is a whole family Of the 9 convicted people is is a witch family.

So they track him down, they bring him in and she can't identify him and he's taken away, it continues.

And then she's claims that the spectral figure stabbed her, you know, with a big knife in the shoulder.

33:01

But she's got a wind, so something happened.

He's tracked down again to a saloon where he's drinking.

He tries to run away.

He's brought back.

He's convicted now under the 15 S 86 Ice Witchcraft Act.

This is a felony you've killed using magic.

33:21

It's a death sentence, you know, and there's no reason to think that it wasn't carried out Now.

We've only got a handful of trials and as far as we know, just.

33:36

These convictions and a couple of other ones, but we don't really know if the enemy was executed in Ireland, apart from maybe Flourish Newton.

In 1661.

So if Florence wasn't executed, then he's the only witch executed an an island.

33:55

Did this, you know, the, the fact that her health didn't improve like you mentioned, which is the expected outcome, is that what kept the community then really focused on witchcraft as the as the cause for this condition?

What you'll see right, is even during that March, she's moved from Noah Head House and Aileen McGee to alarm.

34:17

Because this is.

Really stressful for the people living in the house.

They're up all night pouring in our house.

They feel as if their house has been.

Attacked by the, you know, agents of the Devil.

So quite frankly, you feel as if she has put from Ailey McGee back to Castle Castlereagh with her mother almost as a relief to the community, you know, and so it emerge from the wider community of Ian McGee or Carrickfergus to the to the mother's house, you know, and she is the body of evidence.

34:53

She's the person keeping that going.

She is the person suffering.

And that is hard to if you're, you know, family member or mother to ignore as well, you know, and we.

Always have to not see Mary Dunbar as the big villain.

35:09

But understand the condition and I think that because she's there keep me going, they have to react to it.

Yeah, it makes sense almost that like you said, kind of you need it out of the way because it's been so terrifying, like I out of sight, out of mind type of thing.

35:30

It's so it's, it's had such an impact that you know, you that kind of need to distance yourself from it somewhat makes complete sense.

Do you want to just tell us more about the, the punishment then that was imposed on the 8 women that were convicted?

35:46

You mentioned earlier the public humiliation of them being sentenced to, to be pilloried.

Do you want to go into that a little bit more detail?

Yeah.

I mean, so it'll be 4 times on market day.

So the biggest, this is a market town, busy town, market day, you know, one of the busiest days of the year, along with size day, you know, court day.

36:11

And so there's a kind of punitive aspect to that as a public humiliation.

Everybody can see you and you have to tell people what you've done.

And it was common practice to pelt your stuff and your hands are there, you know, through the holes and shows your head.

36:28

If you go a Carrick Fergus just out from where it really would have been as a modern reimagination.

There's a picture and you know, my book and the old one, I think it's in the new one as well as and the reimagined as you can see it.

And what happened was one of them, you know, and this is folklore lost an eye being pelted with cabbie stock.

36:53

Now we will talk about the disability in the way the witches were described in a wee minute.

But it's important to know that there there was a lot of physical impairments and disabilities among the the eight women and two of them were partially sighted.

37:12

So I mean losing and I, you know, if it was one of them, you know, that means loss of sight.

Now we know about this because of a local historian writing in early 1800s called Samuel Miskemin.

37:27

He writes a big.

Book in the history of Carrickfergus and I think it's the 1st edition is 1819 and he also.

Publishes, you know, the, the pamphlet account.

We've got this big lengthy pamphlet account which I've transcribed for you as well.

37:44

You can get it free online.

He's transcribes us and keeps it, you know.

He actually saves.

It for us.

So he actually, he says it's local folklore.

It's not in any of the the documents he says it's local folklore that they lost an eye.

38:00

It was made famous by quite a famous man, WB Yates and fairly and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry published in 1888.

Now he takes Samuel Miskimmons story and takes it straight and his appendix and from then and and newspapers reports and everything, you will see that that has a lasting effect on the kind of popular mind.

38:22

And it's repeated time and time and time again and it becomes real to people.

Whether it was you or not, who can say so?

How do you think the?

The religious tensions, you know, particularly in the Presbyterian community, how did that influence the the trial and the accusations of witchcraft here?

38:44

Well, you've got to, I think, see this as a community under pressure.

This is a Scottish diaspora.

They are Presbyterian.

They brought their Calvinist, Presbyterian religion with them.

Some of them came with Elizabeth, some of them came the Scottish Protestants, some of them came with the plantation after the fleet of the arrows, when the Catholic Gaelic chiefs after the 9 Years War went abroad and the land was redistributed, confiscated and redistributed.

39:18

But most Presbyterians came after 1660 and they came in a flood and kept coming.

And it was to escape kind of religious persecution in Scotland and then the 1690s to escape a very bad famine.

So a lot of them were actually trying to get a better life and and a better religious condition.

39:39

Unfortunately, after 1689, Ulster and Ireland was on the place and and Britain and Ireland where moderate Presbyterian, Presbyterians, Protestant dissenters didn't have freedom of worship.

The old laws that banned them having their own skills, going to university, been buried by their own ministers, by married, by their own ministers, having their own meeting houses and churches within towns.

40:06

They had to be outside that.

They're beginning after 1689 to be reinforced by the people in control.

And that is not the percent Catholic population that is the Church of Ireland Protestants.

And so it gets worse and worse.

And after seventeen O 4 the Presbyterians who have been creeping into local government that Carrickfergus are kicked out.

40:29

And in 1710 when the church party who is both in England and Ireland, for Anglicans and the Church of Ireland and England, they clamped down and it's really bad in this part of Ulster.

40:45

So this animosity between Anglican and Presbyterian is really bad.

And you'll see it working out in this trial.

You'll see that the people living there feel under pressure.

They feel as if they're true religion.

Presbyterianism is under threat.

41:01

They feel that the chosen ones, and they feel that the devil is attacking them and testing them.

And it's in this heightened fear of the devil in his works that witchcraft makes a lot more sense.

Also in that interpersonal tension as well, there's a Reverend William Tisdell who is the vicar of Belfast.

41:23

And he hates Presbyterians.

He thinks they're going to destroy Ireland along with Catholics, but mainly Presbyterians because of came in so, so many numbers.

What we're we're actually looking at here as emigration fear, all the kind of things that you, you see what's been said about Ulster Scott processes and Presbyterians.

41:48

You know, they're coming here, they're stealing their jobs.

You know, they're they're working their way and a government the best of that.

You know, and, and so it's not a great place and a lot of them going Americans 1718 for that reason.

It's also in the middle.

42:04

Of a war and it's also the water Spanish succession in the middle of an economic downturn you know it may sound, you know familiar because it's very similar it what.

Was happening in Salem.

Calvinist diaspora divided among themselves and, you know, a period of war.

42:26

Yeah, like he said, just that hardship and that that struggle, that strife and how that then seems to just cascade out into the to the community and to the wider consciousness, if you like.

Yeah, it's definitely something you see elsewhere in in various guises and forms.

42:50

As the days grow shorter and the winter nights draw near, the chill in the air invites us to gather closer to the fire, where the flickering flames dance like specters in the dark.

It's during these colder months that our spectral journey deepens, revealing even more chilling tales and unsolved enigmas.

43:12

And now, dear listeners, it's the perfect time to become an integral part of our ghostly congregation.

With the night's lengthening and the shadows growing, we need your support more than ever to keep our supernatural flames burning bright.

43:28

But fear not, for there are a myriad of ways you can help sustain our haunted explorations.

Firstly, have you ever considered Treated our podcast to a virtual coffee?

Imagine it.

A humble offering to fuel our relentless pursuit of haunted histories.

43:47

As we delve into the unknown, simply head over to ko-fi.com/haunted History Chronicles and join us for a caffeine infused seance.

Your support helps keep the fire burning, allowing us to continue unearthing the darkest corners of history.

44:07

But that's merely the beginning of our spectral soiree.

For those intrepid souls yearning for deeper communion with the paranormal, consider joining our exclusive Patreon family.

And here's some truly exciting news.

From the beginning of October through to the end of December, as the winter winds howl and the nights grow long, all Patreon supporters on any tier will be gifted with bonus daily podcasts.

44:36

Yes, you heard that right, daily doses of the supernatural to accompany you through the shorter days and colder nights.

It's a veritable paranormal advent calendar for your soul, making this the perfect time to join the Patreon community.

44:53

So why hesitate?

Journey forth to Patreon.

The links to the Haunted History Chronicles Patreon site is found in the podcast description notes or via the website.

Become a Patreon today and let our tales of the eerie and unexplained be your nightly companions.

45:15

But the spirit of generosity lingers still.

If you seek to flaunt your allegiance to the podcast in more tangible ways, why not venture into our newly unearthed merchandise crypt?

From mugs that whisper their secrets to clothing that echoes with ghostly laughter, the shop is a sanctuary for the discerning paranormal aficionado.

45:39

Again, you can find links to the Tea Public Shop via the website or podcast description notes so that you can traverse the Haunted History Chronicles shop to adorn yourself with our spectral regalia.

Whether it's bestowing a virtual coffee, joining our Spectral Society on Patreon, or donning Haunted History Chronicles apparel, your support keeps the ethereal flames alight.

46:05

Every spectral contribution fuels the pursuit of unearthly truths, so heed the call, dear listeners.

The links to our spectral sanctuaries await in the shadows of the podcast description notes or via the website or social media platforms.

46:23

Dare to embrace the unknown, to journey deeper into the veiled corridors of history.

For only together can we keep the ghostly embers glowing, illuminating the darkness with tales untold.

Now, as the fire crackles and the wind howls outside, let us return to the mysteries that beckon from beyond the veil.

46:48

What spectres await?

What secrets lie dormant, waiting to be unearthed?

Let us venture forth for the journey into the unknown.

Has only just begun in your opinion, you know, what would you say that reveals maybe about the role of gender and, you know, social power dynamics then in early 18th century Ireland?

47:15

Well, I mean, it's a patriarchal society.

I know that some historians say early modern period don't like using patriarchal, they think it's anachronistic.

But I think.

It's a male dominated patriarchal society.

Simple as that.

The machinery of prosecution as handled by men, every part of that was handled by men.

47:39

Women, you know, would have roles within it.

But the prosecution was was a male operation.

And I don't think you can get away from that.

You know, and we know that witchcraft is the gender neutral term, but what happens is 80% of executed, which is the 50,000 are actually women.

48:01

And you know, what is the process?

And we've all get different views of why this is the case.

You know, was it straightforward misogyny, troublesome women hunting, getting rid of people, you know, who channel challenge patriarchy?

I don't think it's as simple as that, but definitely women, in my view, who challenged male dominated societies and, you know, the accepted norms for women were more likely to be accused of witchcraft.

48:31

And these women dead.

Oh my goodness, the dead.

And Mary Dunbar doesn't all through it, she is saying, you know, she's well versed in the Babel.

She's saying that she's like Job, she's suffering, she's pious, she's resisting the temptations of the devil.

48:48

She's good looking, she's educated, she's articulate, you know, and and these women are different.

Just I mean, see, if you just even, you know, read through at the beginning of the book, right?

You know that the descriptions, you know, you can see how this challenged accepted norms of feminine beauty, accepting norms of behavior of the swore they drank.

49:11

They resisted the rest.

They weren't playing or subservient.

There weren't good women.

They resisted this process all the way through either their, their and their daughters and their husbands helped them, but they did whatever they could with their limited means.

And Reya, they understood on that court and they said no as well.

49:29

So there was resistance there as well.

But just that kind of believable, which is and their kind of clothes, the clothes came were shabby.

And she's telling you that they're shabby, telling you that they're poor, telling you that they're denned like their souls, you know, because they're agents of the devil.

49:52

And if you if you just look at, you know, you choose one of them.

And I'm just looking at the beginning of the book here, right where I have a list of who's who, right.

And OK, So Janet, listen for Mail and McGee, she had a long standing reputation for witchcraft, which was also, you know, you could see in many trials everywhere.

50:15

She's married obviously to William Seller.

She is described as a lame woman, so there's kind of disability here as well.

Our daughter is described as being pretty small but lame of leg.

Janet Mann from Broad Island, married to Andrew Ferguson.

50:35

She is considered locally or as another religious woman.

She has an I'll fame, whatever that means.

My wife, Professor Leanne McCormick, who works on she, she works in women in the 20th century.

She would say that that means sex work.

50:51

You know, I'm not sure it does in this context, but it says that she's got a bad temper and no fame.

She's got an unkempt appearance.

She suffered from severe arthritis and her face is badly scarred from smallpox, you know, and she's considered the the ringleader Janet Miller blamed in one eye survived smallpox and fallen in a fire which had left her body badly scarred from her face down.

51:16

She ranted and cursed when interviewed about Dunbar's bewitchment.

And Janet Latimer possessed a reputation for low morals.

So if you're looking for, you know, the the idea, and this is demonologist right about this, the idea that women because you know, they are by definition inferior to men and they have certain characteristics and these characteristics lead them in to the clutches of the devil and they'll lead them any desolate behavior.

51:47

And people who have desolate behavior are more likely to become witches.

So you can see the linkage here between gendered ideas of what a woman is and linking it to a witch.

And these women fed both and William Saylor, again, men who do not fact accepted norms for masculinity are more likely to be accused of witchcraft.

52:16

We haven't seen that in terms of sexuality.

Maybe, you know, we haven't looked for it, but we're definitely and, you know, men who don't are not good heads of households who are desolate, who drink.

They're seen as, you know, failing that kind of standard of masculinity.

52:33

And there are no certain people have said the gender roles and therefore what good women and a bad man change and are fluid.

But I definitely think they're pretty solid in Ireland at this time.

So how do you think then the the trial reflected or or challenges, you know, the, the contemporary views on religion and, you know, the supernatural beliefs in Ireland during the, you know, during the 1700s?

53:02

Well, it definitely the religious view of disability, it definitely feeds into that.

The idea that the kind of the outward disability or physical impairment, you know, whether you know the, whether that happened to you or you were born with, it can be read as you send and people who send them will likely be in the clutches of the devil.

53:26

So you see this kind of link between disability and witchcraft coming through.

And that's what I've been writing about recently.

So definitely that kind of religious view of disability is definitely there and written large in this trial.

But it also reflected, you know, kind of the change in views of witchcraft.

53:45

People are becoming more skeptical of.

Not at this point an eye on the anyway of the witchcraft is real, but definitely of whether you can prove in a court of law.

And I think that that comes through loudly clear, but also the wider supernatural is there to be seen as well.

54:05

You know, you're getting the kind of Protestant Scottish view of witchcraft coming through very strongly.

You're not getting the English view.

There's no familiars.

There is no swimming of the witch, which are more English tropes.

54:21

And you do get them where there's an English population.

And Cork, you got those tropes, but you don't get them there.

Let's see Scottish belief coming through and you see that quite, quite strongly, but you don't see it.

You don't see it within the population, the Gaelic speaking, Irish Catholic population.

54:42

This is a belief that they brought with them.

And I think that that is, you know, reflected in the trial.

But also you see it as well, what they don't mention at the trial, but they mentioned, you know, beforehand as well.

They revert to when, when you know Mary's mom is seeing her daughter in this state, tries to get her fixed, you know, by the minister, doesn't work.

55:09

Get some jailed doll doesn't work.

So she goes to a cunning person or a magical practitioner who you know, tries to give her, you know, a charm.

And the one from the Catholic cunning man doesn't work.

The Protestant one works, but it makes her worse.

55:25

And maybe you're seeing the kind of elite view of cunning folk or popular magic that you shouldn't really use it because if you do use it, it is not real.

And if it has any efficacy, if it works, it's coming from the devil.

So if the the kind of that aspect is not mentioned in this trial, probably for that reason, but you hear about it.

55:48

So what I'm saying is, and if you look elsewhere, you'll see that these people still live in a moral, magical universe where spiritual essences are constantly interfering in the world.

Sometimes that's fairies, especially if you're Catholic.

56:04

It's charms, it's magical healing, it's butter stealing.

It's a whole range of things.

And this isn't the Enlightenment.

This, the 18th century hasn't got rid of all these beliefs.

They're living with them.

So how would you kind of see those, you know, those supernatural beliefs coming through and say like the, the local folklore that surrounds the sites that were attached, you know, associated and attached to the trial itself, You know, things like the, the rocking stone, for example.

56:34

How do you see that coming through then in in local folklore around these these areas?

It's coming through in these the, the folklore because they're, they're talking about it, right?

So they're the people on Island McGee and an Island still believe in witches and certain places up to the 20th century.

56:54

It still has an influence on their life to still try to get them prosecuted, but there's no law to do it by.

But it's still there and it's still happening.

And an Island McGee, the the kind of folklore of the trial continues to enhance and continues to inform this continued belief in witchcraft.

57:14

And they talk to each other about it.

And it's passed down from community member, a community member within families.

But it's also in the folk history as in places.

So there's the witchy stone, which is in the, the east side of the peninsula, which, you know, look it up.

57:29

It's 8 miles long and it kind of sticks out from the Ulster, from Northern Ireland.

And, you know, they're said that there's big claw marks on it where Margaret Mitchell, one of the witches left them when she was being dragged off to the trial.

57:48

People are, you know, and folklore and they say, and, and they're reporting us in the 19th century.

They don't get near it at night.

You know, whether that's true or not, I, I, I tend to think it probably is.

No head house.

Loads of ghost stories and, and, and Satan's right into the 20th century.

58:06

People won't go by it at night.

And the rocking stone, that is where the McGee witches are said to have danced at night.

People don't go near that again in the 19th and the 20th century.

And during the, you know, during the day it is actually it's a tourist attraction.

58:23

But the night scape, it becomes something different and something more sinister.

So just kind of to help put this trial into kind of a broader context, when we think of witch trials, you know, they're relatively rare in Ireland compared to some other European countries.

58:41

Why do you think Ireland saw fewer witchcraft cases?

And how does that then kind of fit into this broader pattern if you like?

Well, that's, that is the that's the question everybody's been trying to answer and people have looked at it in different ways.

58:59

Some people said that they weren't the social tensions or the gender tensions, they created witch trials elsewhere, which is isn't true because you can see that that's the reason, you know why they're accusing each other of witchcraft.

But also they said that the Catholic population didn't use the courts.

59:17

They believed in witchcraft, but didn't use Protestant courts.

But we have seen over the last 30 years that they did use Protestant courts.

So that why would they not use it for witchcraft?

So that that means where is it?

And I think it's level of fear and we could talk about that in a minute, but the idea that the island didn't have any witchcraft belief is something that was promulgated in the the 19th century.

59:45

But they did believe in witches.

It was just not threatening witches.

And in the 19th century, you know, when they do become threatening, you get more and more accusations within these Catholic communities.

So in the early modern period, they're not frightening because they they steal agricultural produce basically.

1:00:05

They steal milk and butter, either you know the productiveness from stolen and milk being churned in a butter or by transmodifying, changing any a hair and stealing it.

So it's very folkloric stealing the milk straight from the cow.

They only do it usually around May Eve and Mayday, so certain time of the old traditional ritual year.

1:00:29

There.

There is a huge amount of magical protections and rituals and rights that you can stop this happening as well.

And fairies are blamed on stealing butter and milk as well.

So it reduces, you know, the need for that, you know, and, and I know Ronald Hutton's argued that the fairy belief was very prominent and the things that were blamed elsewhere on which is, you know, harming humans, for example, and harming kids was not, you know, blame was blamed in fairies in Ireland.

1:01:02

Also, it's not demonic.

These witches are not demonic.

So in Gaelic Irish culture, in short, witches are not threatening.

There's no need to prosecute them.

And there may be something and that they didn't go to the courts.

But I think that as the belief, the Protestants, as was said, coming from Scotland, one of the worst places in Europe for killing witches, basically brought their, their, their beliefs with them.

1:01:29

So only can I'm a minority, maybe of the, you know, the 20% are actually making accusations.

And even then, because they're coming late and in 1660s onwards, the Presbyterian clergy are a bit skeptical.

1:01:47

And for the most part, and it doesn't happen and I'm on the gear strikes, but the most part they're arbitrating.

They're making the accuser of witchcraft and the accused talk to each other and make up and you see the justice of the peace being skeptical, demanding high and higher evidences and rejecting the law.

1:02:07

And we and we only know a tiny fraction of the ones that were rejected, but we know that we're rejecting some of them.

You know, so basically they weren't getting anywhere.

Only a small minority of the population remaining accusations and they're not getting anywhere.

And that's probably to do with belief and situation and the laws.

1:02:25

But we're going to talk about, you know, I think we're going to talk about trials as well.

And there is something in that as well.

So how do?

You think then colonial and you know, political factors, you know, such as the influence of Britain, how did that play into Ireland's relationship here with, with Scotland and so on and played it, how did it play into the role of shaping these witchcraft beliefs here in this trial and, and further afield?

1:02:56

Well, as we said, you know, Scotland is one of the worst places where high level of witchcraft belief and if you believe certain historians, a high level of demonic content, you know, they're really demonic witches.

1:03:13

You know that they're not just harm and using magic, they're harm and under the aegis and the direction of the devil basically.

And it's as we said, it's a very divided community.

There's all the kind of social tensions that are making the personal tensions, you know, in this case, Mary Dunbar accusing people, making them worse.

1:03:35

And it's like a, you know, a pressure cooker.

So that that's kind of the way their broader partner is working.

There is very much a Scottish witch child and an English legal system and you know, and.

1:03:51

You're dealing with.

You know, ethnic and religious minorities within us, you know, who have got a disproportionate amount of power, but definitely not the same, on the same footing as the Anglican Protestants.

So how then would this particular trial compare then to these other well known European trials that maybe we're familiar with, you know, those in England, those in Scotland, etcetera, you know, in terms of the nature of the accusations, how they played out?

1:04:23

It's quite a mass trial really.

I mean, eight people at one time is quite big for England.

It's not big for Scotland.

And Scotland, you know, local trials were untrained judges, for example, chain trials were using torture where one accusation increases the amount exponentially.

1:04:45

So in Scotland there's 2000 people or 2500 executed, 500 in England I think.

What, you know, single figures are just above single figures in Wales.

So we're talking about, you know, very limited witch hunting, but it is a mass witch hunt and it's very late as well.

1:05:08

And the British Isles, there is trials happening, you know, right up to the, the, you know, the late 18th century places like Sweden, for example, and then later on in Poland.

But for the British Isles, this is very, very late.

You know, the last execution in England, 1685, as you know, the last prosecution, Jane Wenham, 1712, the last trial 1717.

1:05:31

But later with Scotland, they say it's 1727.

But that is a kind of, you know, legal, legally dubious that one.

So it is in scale as we and social dynamics.

I mean, as we said, the, the, the kind of the way the demonic possession is working.

1:05:50

We're going to talk about that in a minute as well.

And the social tensions working and the wider political situation and religious situation make things worse.

It's quite similar.

Otherwise we'll see the trials a bit different.

So were there any, you know, significant differences then in the way that they were conducted particularly within that legal framework or the the cultural attitudes then?

1:06:14

Yeah.

Well, I mean, what you have is basically English legal system is transported to Ireland and by the early 17th century, early 1600s, it's replaced the traditional Brehen law and Ireland and it has the same kind of legal structure.

1:06:32

So the same type of legal hurdles you have to get over to get somebody prosecuted for witchcraft.

So and Ireland, it's quite hard to get somebody prosecuted for witchcraft like in England.

You have to, it's not inquisitorial, you have to prove your case.

1:06:52

The justice, the peace law member of the judiciary who has to investigate it, who has to see if there's enough evidence to take it forward their positions, put them in jail.

Then the day of the trial they have to prove it to a grand jury that there's a bill of either or true bill so that it goes to trial.

1:07:15

And if you get that far, then it goes to trial in front of M12 men, a petty jury, and they decide whether you're guilty or not guilty.

So there's a lot of legal hotels to go over in Scotland, like the parts of Europe where witch hunting is really bad, where'd you get chain trials, where you get tortured for a confession, where you see you see an inquisitorial approach almost.

1:07:44

And you see them held in local trials with local people on trained in the law.

Whereas an Ireland and an England, you're getting the best legal means of the the era looking at them a size judges who are travelling in horseback wrench circuits try and eat number of criminals, including the witches.

1:08:02

So it's like England is quite hard to get somebody prosecuted and not like Scotland.

So what would you say the significance was then of the, you know, the 1586 Irish Witchcraft Act that you mentioned earlier?

1:08:18

You know, what was the what was the influence of of that particular act and how does it compare with, you know, other similar legislation?

Again, it's just taken straight from England.

It's the 1563 English Witchcraft Act and you take away the the introduction and it's the same and it's targeting more the cane of the crime of witchcraft rather than the demonic aspect.

1:08:48

And it's also targeting people who are, you know, practicing popular magic, so conjurations or, you know, love magic.

So it's attacking that as well.

And that's very similar to England, but the 16 O 41 that replaced it, 16 O3 that replaced it and England hasn't brought in to Ireland basically.

1:09:09

And that was a harsher act that meant that basically any magical act, you didn't have to kill somebody to be put to death.

You just had to bewatch them.

Now, under that sixteen O 4 act, sixteen O 316 O four, they only give witches would have been all executed.

1:09:27

And in Scotland, 1563 Scottish Witchcraft Act that's different again, that is mainly talking about popular magic and witchcraft.

That doesn't really define witchcraft.

I would say what so it's left to the actual legal authorities or the, the, the, the clerical authorities, authorities starting there, starting looking into it's done to them to actually think about what it is.

1:09:56

So why do you think you know the story of this particular trial?

Why do you think this is is one that really sparks this kind of debate about how how it should be commemorated?

1:10:11

You know, why does it spark the controversy that it does?

And in 2015, a local councillor from a political party basically objected to having a small commemorative garden to the witches.

1:10:29

And it was from it was started by a novelist who who wrote a novel on the witches called Martina Devlin.

And he said that, I mean, he wouldn't support devil worship because he didn't believe the witches were actually innocent and he wasn't really sure if there were weren't.

1:10:48

But, you know, he wasn't going to support desert worship, so he wasn't going to put that there.

And so I was kind of left for a number of years, but people still wanted.

And when I started looking at him, he witches in 2009, you know, there wasn't much, you know, talked about, you know, had been in the the newspapers in the past, but you know, there wasn't much on it.

1:11:13

There had been some popular books and things.

But when the 300 year anniversary rolled around and 2011, I was going as being forgotten basically.

And I really suppressed at least.

And then I wrote the book and then it just was, you know, it took off.

1:11:29

And after 2015 it took off even more and more, more people were saying, so why isn't this, you know, commemorated the locals and I think 2021 got together and put up their own kind of Wicker weight.

1:11:45

Well, the witch basically.

And they put them themselves and it was a kind of a memorial to the witches.

But also looking forward because there's a kind of modern Pagan aspect to, you know, so in 2022 there was actually the the memorial was laid by the council.

1:12:01

And then Irving, in years, a number of things happened.

You know, I said in 2015, when I was asked by the BBC comment on this, I said, well, you know, I'm not sure about the, you know, pardon and but we should commemorate them.

And I think you're missing a check here, you know, economically, you know, I'm not sure they take that on board.

1:12:20

But somebody realized that and they started making a part of the kind of the, the, the tourist package for the area and and that's continued on.

And, you know, our counselor got it passed, you know, because it hadn't, the, the motion hadn't actually been struck off.

1:12:38

It was still there and it was passed.

And they put the, the, the memorial garden, the original memorial didn't have William Seller on it.

And hopefully, you know, my, my research has something to do with, well, it did having something to do with having his name on it as well.

1:12:55

So that was erected, you know, in a community ceremony in 2023.

Why do you think, you know, compared to other witch trials that maybe are more more in people's, you know, awareness in the in the public domain, so to speak, Why do you think compared to places like Pendle, like Salem, this trial has been relatively forgotten in comparison?

1:13:19

Well, I think that was, you know, it wasn't forgotten in the area, but it was forgotten that kind of, you know, a national level.

It was talked about now and again, right.

But I think the the media had a lot to do with that.

And, you know, the historians didn't really talk about Ireland.

1:13:34

So when they wrote books about it and, you know, from 1970s onwards and then textbooks from the 80s onwards, they messed Ireland out, right?

So that didn't help.

And the the local historians, you know, were more, you know, wrote about it, but they didn't put it in the wider context.

1:13:51

They just described what happened, right.

But also the journalist said that a big role in this, right?

And the 18th and the 19th and the early 20th century, what you get as first of all, along with some of the the the non professional historians, they're saying, yeah, well, actually Ireland didn't have many witch trials.

1:14:12

And what we did had was an anomaly.

And they were saying this because a Titan either can enlighten rhetoric.

And this was both unionists and nationalists, Catholics and Protestants.

This idea that witchcraft didn't happen in Ireland was quite good because they saw in the 19th century as a relic of the past, of a benated, bigoted past, a rational past.

1:14:38

And I was quite good because we didn't really believe in them.

So that, you know, so you get that starting off.

And then in the late 19th century, late 1800s, when nationalists, you know, who want to be a closer union with Britain and nationalists who want to either have, you know, greater self determination, whether that's home real or a Republic, they start to interpret the the trials differently.

1:15:06

But both of them are are, you know, leading to this idea that there was no witchcraft belief an island.

So you get the nationalist Catholic press more and more saying, actually, we never ever believed in what she's and they came here with Protestants.

1:15:24

So it's a kind of colonial import and the unionist prices have gone well, actually, we're going to admit that we had trials, but we're not going to say we brought it from Scotland or England because that attacks the idea of a union, you know, So they kind of start backing away from it almost.

1:15:46

And you see that even in other parts of the paper, they're recording somebody who has assaulted another person because they really believed they were a witch.

So people are still believing what she's they're just ignoring that bet and try to distance themselves even further from the historic witch.

1:16:07

So I think there was a kind of discourse of destination and then, you know, because there weren't as many executions as other places, we just forgot there was witchcraft here.

So just kind of coming back to one of the, the kind of the, the central figures that you helped to really bring awareness to, you know, William Seller.

1:16:26

How has you know the admission of him as the only male witch in Ireland impacted on this historical narrative of of the trial And and why do you think he was excluded from from public memory?

Well, I, I, I think what happened was, you know, the more that people forgot about them, the more they forgot about them, if you know what I mean.

1:16:50

What happens is somebody doesn't mention it.

And then they read that and you see journalists reading the other journalists, the articles, you see local historians reading other local historians and what they're concentrating is on, on the women.

And so he suddenly just, he, he drifts out of the picture.

1:17:09

But also, you know, and by the time that this is happening and by the time people are writing plays and and poems about in the 20th century, they're McGee witches.

There's this idea that as intimate related to to women, you know, people are for, you know, I've forgot or not discovered yet that 20% or 10,000 men were executed to witchcraft.

1:17:33

You know, and it's only a minority, but it's a significant minority.

They also forgot that a lot of kids under 13 were executed as well.

So it doesn't fit in with this picture.

Well, you know of of what it was, whether it was a a witch cult that Margaret Murray started the idea that that this kind of pre question Pagan, a fertility cult was being rated out and killed under the guise of witchcraft.

1:18:04

Or it was just troublesome women hunting, which it was in some cases.

And as you still see, you know, you still see this time and time again on the Internet.

So it wasn't threatened with the narrow of at the time of what a witch was, which was a woman, an elderly woman, and what witch hunting was at the time, you know, So it was easy to forget about.

1:18:29

Yeah, I, I kind of, I kind of think of it.

It's almost a little bit like the, the treatment of, you know, those that were prosecuted as, as werewolves, you know, still under this umbrella of witchcraft.

1:18:45

But the records there are a bit more scant.

It's, it's not, it doesn't have the same kind of attention and rigour that the, the witchcraft trials did because they all kind of got merged and, and squished together, if you like.

1:19:01

And as such, I think you lose some of the intricacies of the details around those individuals and the treatment and how they were brought to trial and what subsequently happened to the point where, you know, historians can't even agree as to the types of numbers that were involved because they didn't fit that normal kind of stereotypical understanding of witchcraft and witches and how it was to be prosecuted and, and all of those other things.

1:19:29

So it's kind of like that.

If it doesn't quite fit the norm, it it it can easily drift off to the side and you know something else.

Become the focal point, if you like, in terms of what continues to be discussed and passed on.

Absolutely, and you know, and it's not you know, or let's just remember the the the one man and forget about the women.

1:19:52

You know, I think you have to think of witch crafters who effects and it doesn't just affect the people who are convicted, effects communities, as we've seen at Blake's communities that hangs around communities has passed down.

It paints places as well, you know, it changes places like Salem forever, yeah.

1:20:16

It's yeah, I think it's I think, I think you hit the nail right on the head there.

I've spoken about it before with other people.

How, you know, we have to bear in mind that these were small knit communities.

And you know, to accuse your neighbour and then to have them found guilty, that's something that you then have to live with you.

1:20:35

You know, if they're executed, you have to live with those families and the ramifications of that.

But likewise, if they're found guilty and sentenced to pillory and and so on and so forth, again, there's still that, you know, you're still a community.

1:20:51

You have to live side by side with each other.

Where you are.

Accusing people of of these terrible things, which not, I mean, it's unimaginable, but it must have been very difficult, must have been a very complex situation and experience to find yourself in that, the tension that that would have brought.

1:21:11

Absolutely.

I mean, it's horrific.

And you know, we know about witch calf reputations that their past and are generationally as well.

And you see this all over Europe where the daughter is more likely, we believe, be a witch because her mum was one.

1:21:29

And you see it, you know, working in the witch family and and Angie McGee, I think.

In your opinion, what would you say is maybe the the best way that we could commemorate this account, You know, especially in, you know, in light of Ireland's complex relationship, you know, with witch hunting, it's witch hunting past.

1:21:52

How could we best commemorate and not forget this particular trial in this particular case?

All these people.

Who have, you know, worked so hard to get that small plaque there and the Gobbins Visitor Center.

And I think that are an amazing job and, and, and, you know, and, and there were so many people behind it as well.

1:22:14

You know, I think the majority of people, you know, behind that.

We were talking about some of the criticisms there, but for most part people in All Star, you know, were behind this commemoration and they saw that these were real people there, you know, and, and what we have tried to do as well as give it to people to to come up with their own ideas to to think about it themselves.

1:22:39

And this is what the the Ale McGee Creative and Digital project was.

And this was led by Victoria McCollum, Dr. Victoria McCollum, Ulster University and myself.

I mean, what we arrange a colleagues like Helen Doctor, Alan Jackson at the Melvin, Sabrina Minter sort of left it up there.

1:22:58

And what we created, we wrote a graphic novel, we've done an animation, we transcribed the the documents, Shannon Devlin and we also done a video game and AVR application.

1:23:15

And we did all these things and we took them into the community.

And we had the first exhibition as well on the trial.

And this was in Carrickfergus.

So well, we're talking about kind of the, the, the, some of the opposition.

But by 2022, the, the, the newly formed council had put up a, a small plaque and they have helped fund that exhibition.

1:23:42

And we put all our kind of VR and all that into that exhibition.

And you know that all the panels and all that sort of stuff and brought in your magical objects.

And that was a really successful exhibition.

And that was, you know, and to me that that was, you know, commemoration as well and letting people remember them the way that they want to remember them and and bringing that to a bigger audience as well, You know, because not everybody's going to read a book.

1:24:10

But we've thought that these type of like the animation and exhibition and there's going to be a permanent hub and Carrickfergus Museum and County Antrim that will showcase the game and parts of the exhibition.

So I think it's definitely transformed since 2011.

1:24:31

I, I mean, I think one of the, the, the incredible things about the project is that besides the interactive nature of it and the fact that it has thrown it open to such a huge wide audience.

What you have is this ability to engage and interact in different mediums and across different platforms.

1:24:53

Whether it is through sound, with music that you've uploaded, whether it's through, you know, blogs that you can read, whether it's through hands on physically being able to examine artifacts, etcetera.

You know, you, you've enabled people to experience this story in their own way, this account in their own way across so many different platforms that really, I do think allows people to experience it for themselves in a way that best suits them.

1:25:24

But at the same time, really immerse them in it, Which I think you know, is one of the best ways to really understand I think, and get to the heart of of the story behind what happened here and understand it more.

Absolutely.

1:25:40

I mean if you go into, you know, you go into our website and you know it's up there and you go to the VR place.

If you go down at the bottom and you click on, there is a, there's a 14 minute bespoke animation and that is actually in the VR app.

And we've put a walkthrough for that VR app.

1:25:57

And then the VR app you go in and you pick up the reels and you can watch that on the big screen and your VR headset, which you know you can side load as well.

But but then you're, you can go through a door and you experience what it's like to be demonically possessed, like levitate and pick up objects and you learn, you know, as well what it's like to be, you know, accused of which car you're thrown in jail, for example, and things like that.

1:26:25

And then the video of games different.

This is an open world, you know, and that's going to be like released, you know, commercially where you walk about and you you find out about the trial, you know, so it's a kind of.

It's an open world.

Video game as well, but there's, you know, there's details on the the the website up at that as well and you can read the original document.

1:26:50

And of course, I will make sure that you know, the website link etcetera, as well as links to your books.

I'll make sure that all of those links for you for the website, for the, your books, etcetera.

All are all really readily available on the on the podcast description notes as well as the website.

1:27:07

Because I think, you know, if anyone wants to follow this up with some more reading by taking a look at the project in more detail, listening to some of the music, you know, all of the things that we've touched upon there, you know, you can easily do so.

And it's so worth, you know, worth anyone's time, I think to be able to explore something that really is rather intriguing and like we said, has been, I think under discussed.

1:27:34

But here you are bringing it to anyone who want, who has an interest.

And I think that's that's really important.

So yeah, I will make sure that all of those links are easy there for anyone to follow and to find them and hopefully go and explore.

Thank you and enjoy and come up make your own history there, McGee Witches, what do you think?

1:27:56

Absolutely and honestly, thank you so much Andrew for your time in in coming and sharing some of this complex history with, with everybody listening.

So I, you know, I really do appreciate you coming and giving some of that insight and that knowledge and, and sharing more about the project because I think it's, I think it's incredible.

1:28:14

I think it's brilliant what you've done so far.

So thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

And I'll say goodbye to everybody listening.

Bye everybody.

Thank you for.

1:28:31

Joining us on this journey into the unknown.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, Rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

You can follow us on social media for updates and more intriguing stories.

1:28:47

Until next time, keep your eyes open and your mind curious.